2020-21 Yearbook

RESOLVE, RESTORE AND REVIVE

Liz Hayes was elected as President of our Rotary Club in November 2020. Due to the pandemic she will serve for 18 months instead of the usual 12.  

Liz is a recently retired secondary school head teacher and a member of Rotary since 2015. She is a regular 'geordie' lass having being born, brought up, studied, worked and married whilst always living on Tyneside. But she likes to get away from Tyneside to the sun for her summer holidays!

Liz is our second lady president in recent years and looks forward, in these difficult times, to continuing the community work of club which has in existence for so many years.

When she was elected Liz said;

"The first thing that I must do is to thank you all for electing me to this position. At this uncertain time in our lives I do not know what the future will hold for us both as individuals and as members of Whitley Bay Rotary Club. What I can promise you is that I will work as hard as I possibly can to take our club forward in the next 18 months as we approach our centenary. There is so much of which to be proud in our history and many exciting things to come even if at the moment that seems in the far distant.

I would like to now pay tribute to Immediate Past President Rod for his leadership of our club over the past 16 months. I know that Rod has had a real impact upon us from his insistence that we wore bizarre things at our meetings to cajoling us all to be more active within the club to taking us to BBC and enacting a play. I know that one of his sadnesses has been our inability to recruit new members who would then stay with us and that will be one of my priorities. But we have learnt new words such as petanque, we have realised how competitive Rod is but at the same time how passionate he is about helping others both locally and further afield. Rod has introduced us to zoom meetings at Rotary and whilst they are not everyone’s cup of tea they are the future for us for a while. I also know that Rod has actively engaged with other clubs and challenged some of the officials within the rotary organisation and that outward looking quality is much to be admired.
So, Rod, on behalf of all the members of Whitley Bay Rotary Club, a massive thank you for all that you have done for our club. But please do not think that you are retiring as immediate past presidents certainly have some duties even if I cannot recall any at this moment. So, can I ask everyone to give Rod a real loud round of applause.

And so looking forward, as you can imagine, this is a very strange time to be taking over the presidency of an organisation. I do not want to dwell on what is happening in the world as we are all fully aware of the situation and our own personal responses to the pandemic.
I do wonder though what people such as A Briggs, a founder member of our club, W G Barnett and W A Laws the first two presidents who actually served for three and two consecutive years respectively would think about the world today and rotary in particular. I want us to try really hard to raise our heads and look forward to how things will be in a while. I know from chatting individually to quite a few members that there is a real will to move our club on and embrace new ideas. I think it will be small steps to start with but in the longer term I do hope that we can reinvigorate our fundraising programme, maybe in different ways, enjoy fellowship together and lead or participate in activities to support both our local community and the wider area.

Every president has to have a phrase, saying or their own personal mantra and I am no exception. Had we been meeting in person no one would have escaped some jibe or comment but that will come – don’t worry!
So, you all know that I am a retired head teacher and at this point, I would like to bring you the first of many updates on the state of education in our country. Basically there’s nowt happening at this moment as it was half term last week in most places and the holidays are the time when government announcements are made.
We all remember when were at school that we were taught the three Rs – Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic.

Well, I have another three Rs for my motto for my presidency and they are resolve, restore and revive. I want us to resolve how we are going to use the next bit of time to the best effect. Council has agreed a meeting pattern for the immediate future which I will share in a moment. Restore as we do eventually come back face to face and return to some of the things which are essential to our club and then, most importantly, revive as we look to the future and how we will all take Whitley Bay Rotary through 2021 and beyond. Yes I am the president or leader or whatever title is dreamt up by them down south but we are all in it together and we need a real debate about the revival of the rotary club after this dreadful time we are currently experiencing.
And so a couple of practicalities, I do plan that we will meet in a fortnight’s time on 17th and hopefully we will have a speaker via zoom. We will celebrate Christmas on 14th December and then for the first three months of next year we will meet on the first Tuesday of each month, again via zoom. I do not think that we can plan further than that at present.
And so, fellow Rotarians, as the second lady president of Whitley Bay Rotary Club, thank you all so much for electing me to this role.

As I said at the beginning, I will work as hard as I can to take our club forward in the coming 18 months as together we resolve, restore and revive Whitley Bay Rotary Club,

Thank you.

And so behind every good leader is a great team and so I am delighted to unveil my team to you all.
Firstly, Roger Windass who is to be our Senior Vice President.
And the wonderful John Clarkson as Junior Vice President.
We all need someone to look after our money and Brian Johnson is the man for the job in my book ably assisted by Martin Macray.
Roger has agreed to continue as secretary at the moment and I have some cunning plans going forward. David Wilkinson is his deputy and expertly minutes all our council meetings.
And to the council, all these great people will serve on the council in addition to Tore Skjaerstad who is in charge of our charitable fund-raising work, Martin leading on international matters and Mike Loxley our membership secretary.
Rod remains on council for the year and I am sure he will offer a good steer when I go off course.
Terry Took is now able to take his leave of council and I am sure he will be delighted at this news although he has said he will continue to attend the odd meeting to keep his hand in and finally Richard Hart remains on council in his role as our publicity officer.
Terry has agreed to continue as our meal monitor when we eventually return to the golf club and I propose that Gerry Carr, John Garfitt and Mike Loxley share the registrar duties again one day in the future!"